Of course not, but that is a false analogy. General medical care is not the same as donor organs.
The OPTB is not rationing care, it is allocating a finite and very scarce resource so as to ensure the greatest benefit for the greatest number of recipients.
It does no good to allocate organs based on media representations and photo ops with cute kids. The criteria have to be medically based on success rates.
The desperate parents have used the media to create a firestorm of sympathetic yet ignorant do-gooders, while politicians grandstand for face time and the judge has opened a can of legal worms that I hope a higher court makes him eat.
Decisions on criteria have to be made. Are we going to do it with emotion or with medical science? Are we going to let anyone sue and have the courts second guess the medical experts opinions every time somebody doesn’t make the list?
You got the story wrong .
The transplant Doctors made the request but federal guidelines prevented the person from being on the list .
The federal guidelines are dated and created 30 years ago and even updated for modern technology and body types.
Insurance companies use these federal guidelines as an excuse to not pay for
Not everyone in the transplant list will be compatible with each lung available .
It a good thing to modernize theses lists for children
From Rush Limbaugh transcript:
“I lit a cigar in honor of Sarah Palin right as the program began.
Death panels. Just exactly what Sarah Palin said, exactly what we all knew. Obamacare establishes death panels, and right now Sebelius is it.
And that’s what Obamacare says. I don’t know how many times it says it in there, but the phrase “as the secretary shall determine,” meaning the secretary of Health and Human Services.
Well, Sebelius has determined a 10-year-old doesn’t get the lung.
She doesn’t get a lung transplant ‘cause she is 10 years old, and you have to be 12 to get a lung transplant under the current regulations.
Her congressman has begged Sebelius to waive the regulation, but she has refused.
The congressman’s a Republican. Of course Sebelius would refuse.
But I remember how people laughed. I remember how the media said, “Ah, you Republicans, ah, you conservatives, you’re just over the top. There aren’t any death panels. What are you talking about?”
Look, I’m not even gonna sit here and say that Sebelius is wrong not to not intervene, but they’re death panels.
The government’s making the decision who lives and dies. “